Remember the old black and white episodes of the Twilight Zone with Rod Serling?

I sat watching the old episodes on Sci-Fi and I really paid attention to them. Earlier they were playing from the newer reboot of the series when they were in color, I paid attention to them too.

I compared the two and I find the old Black and White episodes were better. They seemed more poignant and meaningful, even the most absurdly stupid of them. From stories of an old man being saved from going to Hell by his faithful dog to a Nazi War Criminal being judged by the very victims he put to death, these stories struck a resonate cord within me and provoked philosophical musings and thought.

Probably a difference in the writing or just a case of something that was done right the first time around. The colored episodes didn't have the same feel to me, although a few of them were good.

Perhaps I'm just too old fashioned in mind, I don't always like when something is remade or done over by another artist. WATCHING YOU was better by Sting not Puff Daddy. The Dukes of Hazzard TV show was ALWAYS better than the movie. And The Kolchak the Night Stalker reboot was just painful to watch.

Some reboots are good, I like Jimmy Buffet's reboot of Brown Eyed Girl to the original recording. The new Batman movies are a definite step up from Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. And Transformers: Animated was a good animated series for the Transformers franchise.

But I think that's because the people doing this were actually CAREFUL when they took something recognizable and familiar, something we all knew and acknowledged and changed the packaging. They made something old new while still respecting the history and meaning behind it. Not just taking something old and just slapping the name on a new product in hopes of passing it off as the original to the unassuming mind.

I have no issue when an artist reboots an old song, movie, TV show, whatever, so long as they understand what made it appealing and gave it staying power.

Just because Marylin Manson got the rights to sing Sweet Dreams in his usual style of music, doesn't mean he should. He took something familiar and changed it entirely making it unappealing and just insulting to the ear.

So here I sit, a person no better, taking old action figures, taking pictures of them in strange new locations, trying to bring life into inanimate objects. A child playing with her toys, creating something new and interesting from the tools already available to her. The difference is I take pride in what I do and I try to keep the characters as alive as the living cells that make up my body. Imbuing them with pieces of me to bring these dolls to life...

A lesson in rewriting from... THE TWILIGHT ZONE...

And I came up with all this crap SOBER!